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External Hard Drive average lifespan?

theworldwithout

theworldwithout

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I never thought too much about this before, but what would be about the average lifespan of an external hard drive?

I got the one I'm currently using, a Maxtor 3200 500GB drive, about a year and a half ago that I use for my music and some movies along with some documents and comics. Last week I noticed when I was playing some of my music whenever it would play something I had stored on that drive there was a 3 to 4 second lag before it would play the file. This got me wondering if I should copy everything I have on it onto another drive just to be safe...(since then though whatever the problem was seems to have fixed itself). I still plan on backing up everything I have on it, but I was just wondering if anyone had an answer, if there is one.
 
I first had a cheap case where I killed many HDs by overheating.

Now I have a case where two HDs fit inside and there's a fan. Latter one is a bit loud, but the HDs still work since months.
 
Mine is still in it's original plastic casing, with no fan. It goes into like power down mode or something after a while whenever it's not in use.
 
I have a Maxtor that is on 24/7 and yet to have a problem with it after about two years. I use it as the main backup for my desk top and my netbook.
 
There are no guarantees. I've had hard drives last for years, and others die within days of purchase. If you want to play it safe, and you have the budget, keep a second drive and do a weekly or monthly backup of the first drive. There are software utilities that will allow you to do a constant mirror of the drives, if you really want to play it safe. There are also hard drive enclosures which can carry 2 drives and run as a mirrored RAID.
 
It all depends on how hot the drive gets (though it should be able to tolerate some real extremes), and more importantly, how much shock from handling/moving it receives. If it sits on a desk, and never moves, it should be good for at least 5 years.

With that said...I've had two Seagate drives (put in my own enclosure) that have bit the dust in the last three years. Both replaced in warranty.

It was because of this that I now run Windows Home Server and have two hard drives that are duplicates.
 
Average lifespan of a series of Seagate 7200.11 is about 3 months. If you got a seagate drive in the past year go to their site and compare model and firmware numbers. It may need a firmware upgrade. I found out after mine bricked last week. Luckily it was a backup drive and it will be replaced under warranty. I am also getting another, a Hitachi 1 Tera. So I will have 3 manufacturers of drives in my Mac Pro Quad. At least one should survive:grrr:
 
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